Poverty, chastity and obedience: Sound like a prison sentence to you?

Then being a nun is not your calling. If it were, taking those vows would not seem like a sacrifice at all, according to Key Biscayne's two sisters.

Sister Marie Angela and Sister Frances O'Dell of St. Agnes Catholic Church assert that living the life of a religious is in fact a privilege, not a punishment.

"God makes known His will through our natures, our desires," said Sister Angela, adding that internal cravings to be married and have a family are promptings from God.

She continued with advice she offers her parishioners. "Don't ever volunteer as a sacrifice. Volunteer because it's what you love. Only that way will the true sparkle come through your eyes." To Sister Angela, sparkling eyes are the window to a peaceful soul, something she has frequently experienced in her vocation.

"The best thing is the peace that comes from the conviction that this is where God wants us to be...It's the best feeling in the world," she said.

The calling

Sister Angela, who has been in charge of catechism classes at St. Agnes for the past 15 years, was struck with her calling Christmas night as she was playing Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" on her family's piano while she was a senior in high school.

"I just got this tremendous conviction that I should become a religious and from that moment I have never looked back," said the native Baltimorean, who was raised Catholic and baptized Catherine. Sister Frances' realization came more gradually. "It kind of grew on me, actually," said the four-year St. Agnes Academy librarian.

Also raised a Catholic, Sister Frances first thought about religious life while attending public school in Homestead, where her father was based at Everglades National Park.

She mentioned the idea to her mother. "She listened. She looked and she laughed," Sister Frances remembered. "I was heartbroken."

The young Rae Elizabeth, her baptized name, did not mention the idea again until high school. "What I discovered," she explained, "was the energy it took to pretend it wasn't what I wanted. That just didn't work. It was real."

What both sisters have in common is that they entered their convents right out of high school, a practice which is less frequent today, when many women opt for education and career before making their decision to join a Catholic religious order.

Sister Marie Angela chose the Order of the Sisters Superior of Notre Dame, which was the same order her parochial high school teachers belonged to. The order was established in Bavaria in 1833 to educate poor women, who were believed by the founder to be the basis of the Church and society. The order came to the U.S. in 1847 to teach poor German immigrants, including boys.

Sister Frances chose to join the Franciscan Sisters of Allegany, New York, because she had always admired St. Francis - her mother hung a plaque of the saint's prayer on the wall of the family's home - and had felt the Franciscan nuns were warm people, a quality she admired as her family moved around the country with the park service.

The Franciscans were founded by Francis of Assisi in Italy, who developed a traveling ministry to the rich and poor alike. St. Francis felt a deep call to follow Christ by living the gospels at deeply as he could, choosing to live in poverty and simplicity. Both sisters studied intensively for three years before taking their three vows.

Poverty

Nuns own nothing. The material things they use are loaned to them by their orders to carry out their respective missions. For instance, Sister Angela is given a salary in order to live in her own apartment on Key Biscayne, a practice common to sisters of her order now that parochial schools are too expensive for the poor, forcing them to expand their humanitarian efforts beyond the parish convent. Sister Frances, on the other hand, uses a car to commute from her North Miami convent.

Sister Angela said 40 percent of her salary goes directly to her order to support its elderly sisters and various ministries. Another large chunk is used for rent on the island, where she organizes a number of fundraisers for the poor.

"Basically I live on one-third of my salary," explained Sister Angela, who had wanted to be a chemist, make lots of money and travel around the world before she received her calling, "but it's enough because if you're a good religious, which I hope I am, you don't want luxuries. You're happy to live on the necessities of life."

Unlike their early days in religious life, the two sisters have not been required to wear habits since the early 1960s, when the Second Vatican Council left the choice of attire up to each religious order. The habits, loaned to sisters by the order, were formerly used to create a uniform appearance among religious orders.

Despite the choice of many in her religious community, Sister Angela continues to don a veil and whatever clothing she deems appropriate to wear with a veil. "Because of my choice to wear a veil, I wear extremely simple blouses and skirts," she explained, adding that pants would look "ridiculous" with a veil.

Why does she still wear one, even though she doesn't have to? "I think it's important to be identified as a religious by wearing a veil," Sister Angela explained. "This defines my ministry here. It's an outward sign of who I am as a religious in the Church ministering to this particular parish."

However, she did admit that when she walks the beach early in the morning, she leaves the veil at home and sports a pair of comfortable Bermuda shorts.

Sister Frances, on the other hand, wears no veil but still very simple clothing, usually in the earthtones that St. Francis preferred. She also wears a large Franciscan Tau, a modified cross.

"It's funny," Sister Frances explained. "It doesn't matter what I wear. People come up to me and say, 'You're a sister...' If they can guess from the way I'm living that I'm a sister, that's fine because it shows I'm witnessing and it shows enough for them to notice."

Sister Angela agreed. "[The veil] is not the only outward sign. How I act is the major sign of my identity as a religious."

Chastity

In discussing what is perhaps the most intriguing and definitive aspect of Catholic religious life, both sisters said that not having a family of their own allows them more time for worship and helping those in need.

"I have every opportunity for the solitude every human being needs than I would have if I were a mother," said Sister Angela, whose freedom has granted her the time to earn two master's degrees, one in secondary school science and one in Hispanic ministry.

Sister Frances agreed. "I am much freer than I would be if I had a family."

But, she added, "I've never had a lack of kids. I've been teaching since 1968, so I've had children around."

Have they ever had second thoughts?

"It's not that I've never thought about that," Sister Frances admitted, "but I've received such blessings and support and nurturing from the Lord that I believe I've been called where I am. I feel I've received something very special."

Both sisters agree that married life can be just as spiritually supportive for certain individuals as celibate life has been for them.

"Each person is called to their own role," Sister Frances explained. "I'm not saying that people who are married can't have a deep relationship with God."

Sister Angela put it this way: nuns have a different, not a better, relationship with God than lay people. "Everything in life involves a choice," said Sister Angela, who is an advocate for the Catholic marriage court, which determines annulments. "When you choose something, you choose one good but give up another good. That's what choice involves."

Still, Sister Angela said, it is often difficult to determine which is the right choice. "You never can totally figure out His will," Sister Angela continued, "but I think God takes the general intention and smooths out the rough edges of our choices."

What about physical human needs? Sister Frances said that celibacy on the human level can be lonely. But, she added, "It gives you the space for God to come in. I know it's God. You let God companion you through life in the primary supportive role," she said, adding that living in community with like-minded people alleviates the loneliness many people feel without a partner.

"It's a witness," she continued, "that God can really be all that a human being really needs and if you dare to really trust in the love and the mercy of God, He'll bring you to the fullness of what you can be and give real meaning to your life and that what He asks for is really possible and there really is joy in following His commandments."

Obedience

What happens when a nun disagrees with the decisions of her superiors? Is she free to speak out?

The fiery Sister Angela is willing to speak her mind. Still, she's no rebel.

"I encourage people to question to explore their doubts but I fully accept all the doctrines of the church," said Sister Angela, who calls herself theologically conservative and politically liberal. "This is important. Our Lord did not want us to be blind sheep."

Sister Frances takes a more reserved approach. "I admit our understanding of God's word can grow and deepen," she explained. "But I think sometimes in modern times there's a tendency to throw out the baby with the bathwater. I think things are thrown out too quickly."

She said she values introspection more than activism. "I want to grapple with my own issues before I criticize anybody else's."

On the issue of whether women should be allowed to be clergy, both sisters said they would not be priests even if they could.

"I didn't become a sister because I felt I was called to be a priest," Sister Frances said. "I don't."

In fact, she said, she does not see woman's role in the church as an oppressed one. "Women in the church have been doing tremendous things for years," explained Sister Frances, who holds a master's degree in sacred science and is in the midst of studying for a master's degree in library and information science. "They have been running hospitals years before secular women."

The bottom line for Sister Frances is, if and when it is God's will, woman's role in the church, and any other issue, will change, most likely in a gradual manner.

"Obedience to the spirit of God leading the church and reflection on the tradition - that's a much sounder basis for judgement than jumping on popular bandwagons," she explained. Both sisters have obediently served at the beck and call of their respective orders.

Sister Angela's first assignment was teaching second grade at a parochial school in Tampa. "I had applied to the foreign missions and in Baltimore, Florida was foreign," she said, laughing.

Each succeeding assignment found Sister Angela teaching a higher grade level until finally she was a high school math and science teacher at St. Brendan's High School in Miami and vice principal at Madonna Academy in Hollywood.

Sister Frances, on the other hand, first taught at two schools in New Jersey. She was then sent to Jamaica for 15 years to teach scripture before being transferred to the Miami area, where she has taught at three schools. She has worked with ages 3 through adults since she joined her order at age 17.

Not holier than thou

Beginning in the 1970s, the number of people joining the clergy has decreased considerably in the Western World. A majority of new clergy members come from developing countries, according to Sister Angela.

She has a couple of explanations. One is the increased role of laity in the church since the Second Vatican Council encouraged all Catholics, not just priests and nuns, to become involved in their parish.

The other is the rise of materialism in the West. "Wherever you have an increase in comfort and wealth, there is a corresponding decrease in the spirit of sacrifice...the spirit of commitment," she said, attributing this same phenomenon to higher divorce rates in recent years.

But her commitment hasn't wavered since she made it at age 17. She spends more than an hour in prayer each morning, goes to Mass each day and takes another hour in the evenings to pray and read spiritual writings.

Not that Sister Angela's mind doesn't wander every once in awhile in the midst of her daily rituals. "It's not the success with prayer but the commitment to prayer" that counts, she said. "When you give God time," she explained, "same as when you give Him money, He showers you with blessings far beyond what He gives you." This is not to say that religious life is one of unwavering bliss. "Life is life no matter where you live it and human beings are human beings. This is not an ivory tower," said Sister Frances, adding that nuns are trying not to be perfect but to focus their lives in a specific way.

"I guess I try to be sure to do the best to live what I believe in...I don't want to be self-righteous about stuff." Both sisters said those who join religious orders do not suddenly become superhuman. "It's not that your emotions shut down," Sister Frances explained. "It's what you do with them."

Sister Angela affirmed the humanness of herself and her colleagues. "The Hollywood or media image of the nun is so false--either laughable or harmful--it is ridiculous," she said. "I don't consider myself holy. All I know is I'm happy."